


Seizure

by BalloonBalls



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Cecil isn't in this I am so sorry, Episode 55 and on, I'm Sorry, Other, my version of events that happened before carlos ended up in nightvale, none of this is cannon I swear, please don't hang me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 20:03:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11721561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BalloonBalls/pseuds/BalloonBalls
Summary: How did Carlos get to Nightvale? That's something that no one knows, not even Carlos. Well, people do come back from Nightvale somehow. What if that has to do with something? That's what Carlos and his team of scientists need to find out.





	1. Mad Scientist

The sun was long gone, the stars were twinkling and the moon laughed and mocked the man sitting in his lab chair. It had been days, weeks, months. And every night that moon mocked him until sunrise when the janitor kicked him out and gave him money for a muffin every morning because the janitor was worried about him. He barely slept, and when he slept he even had dreams about it. He thought about it every moment, awake and asleep. It was consuming his life, this damn case.

He glanced at his phone for a moment, it was 4:46 a.m and six missed text messages from Sylvia. 'Carlos, are you still at work?' 'Your car is still in the parking lot' 'This isn't healthy' 'Carlos your obsession is not healthy' 'You're robbing Mal dry of money since he keeps giving you money for muffins Carlos' 'Go to bed, please'. Carlos sighed, leaning back in his lab chair. This case, it's going nowhere.

At least five people have been having seizures for days straight, eating and drinking through tubes for days and days on end. It won't kill them, and that's scientifically not possible to just seizure continuously. It's supposed to kill you, or you're supposed to stop. You can't just...seizure forever. It's not even caused by lights or anything either. No, it's caused by random things you'd find in daily life, like...mountains.

the case was absolutely baffling, and nothing really even made sense. Whenever anyone tried talking to these people they'd sputter incoherent sentences or things like 'we know too much' or 'the voice on the radio'. What's even weirder is that they say both of those things, in the same order. And many more things in the same order. Doctors and scientists have checked their brainwaves, their heart rates, and everything is normal.

Even investigators were on this case as well, trying to trace their steps to see where they've disappeared to and to keep them from going there before it ends up being too late. The only thing that's less concerning is that everyone ends up coming back within the first six months, and that's the only correlation any of them really have. Race, gender, age, sexuality, none of it matters. Not even location.

But what's odd is not all of them have seizures, and the ones who don't have seizures don't remember wherever the place they went was. And the ones who do remember are too broken beyond repair to understand. Everything is a complete dead end. Carlos grabbed his coffee cup and took a sip of it, finishing off the now cold beverage. Carlos had taken some pretty difficult cases, and he even solved a couple of scientific cases. He even knew when it was time to give up a case and hand it over to people who could probably do it better.

But something about this case stood out to him. Maybe because it was such an honor to be apart of this ground breaking case to begin with. Carlos was a professor at a university called The University of What It Is, however this university wasn't really a university, it was Grads school. For young scientists coming in and getting their final degree. With this university, teachers major in science and are, well, scientists. But mainly teachers.

However Carlos taught few classes, he was really a teacher more for the reason of needing a more stable income than random breakthroughs in random cases he's involved in. So on one faithful day, someone had called him. They had said "We're desperate. our team has no idea what is even going on, and you have a reputation of coming up with the strangest things that strangely work. We need your mind on this project to think outside the box." Carlos knew damn well he could never say no.

Since he was offered a position in a case that took the news by storm, he knew that he couldn't just...give up. The case was everywhere, in newspapers to local messages on dash boards on whatever social media was in time today. He couldn't just drop everything he worked so hard on, yet none of his efforts brought him anywhere. Maybe he just needed a break...through. A breakthrough. What are breakthroughs? "What is sleep?" Carlos muttered to himself, annoyed, and rubbing his falling eyelids.

In the silence of the night, his phone buzzed again. Carlos muttered a curse under his breath before grabbing his phone and checking the new text, not before his eyes were blinded by the unholy light called 'phone screen on full brightness at 5 a.m'. Is this what heavenly light looks like? Carlos scrabbled around on his phone screen half blind, looking to turn his brightness down. But, it adjusted to the lack of light and the brightness went down on it's own. Huh, smartphones.

The text was by none other than Sylvia. Again. 'Carlos I know you're still in your office. Mal is waiting in the hallway to give you a muffin.' Carlos squinted at the text for a moment to understand the small message behind it. Not actually behind it, but inside it. 'You're in the building?' Carlos texted back. 'Yeah, I had Mal let me in.' Sylvia texted back. 'Why?' Carlos asked in a text. 'Is it so bad for me to be worried about my friend?' Sylvia texted, and then a knock at Carlos' door made him look up from his phone. 

"Come in." Carlos said, and the door opened. It was a young woman, Sylvia. "Mal told me to give you the morning muffin, he wanted to go home." Sylvia said, tossing Carlos the muffin. ...He almost caught it. She smiled at his attempt at catching the muffin. "So what brings you here, Sylvia?" Carlos asked, sitting up only slightly. "I was going to come sooner but I fell asleep." Sylvia said, closing the door behind her. "That explains why your hair looks like a lion's mane." Carlos smiled. 

"You don't look any better!" Sylvia protested, but still smiling. "My bedhead is caused by hours of not being in a bed." Carlos said, looking down at his messy desk in discontent. "And a lack of a hair cut." Sylvia said. "Longer hair is better for me." Carlos said, and Sylvia just shook her head with a lack of better words. "Come on Carlos, when was the last time you slept?" Sylvia asked, and Carlos just shrugged. 

"Don't you wanna go home? To a nice warm bed. Maybe you can't think of anything because you're brain is tired." Sylvia said, and for the first time in a while, Carlos considered sleep might end up being the option. Carlos rubbed his eyes for the unknown amount of time this night, but he knew his eyes were stinging and his body was failing him. "Please, Carlos? Sleep in, stay asleep until 3 in the afternoon. Call in sick to work. Just lounge around." Syvlia said, and Carlos sighed.

"People are disappearing Sylvia. This isn't just a normal science experiment about rocks or the sky or something. This could save lives, save families." Carlos said a little louder than he needed to. "Yes, I get that. But you're getting nowhere running off of no sleep. Quality over Quantity. Quality short hours where you get stuff done or endless hours where little gets done. Your choice." Sylvia cracked down on him. Carlos sighed again. 

"Fine, fine." Carlos said, causing Sylvia to smile. "On one condition. If anything, and I mean anything, happens in this case. I go back to work immediately, and someone will let me know immediately." Carlos said, and Sylvia sighed. "Deal." She said, walking over to the desk and extending her hand out to him. He took it, shaking it. "Thank you." Carlos smiled at her. "Here let me help you clean up all this stuff." Sylvia said, grabbing a file and all the papers that were falling out of it. 

"You know you're not supposed to see any of that." Carlos said in a lighthearted tone. "And you're supposed to be getting eight hours of sleep every night, but look what happened." Sylvia placed the now clean looking file on the desk. "I got a job. That's what happened." Carlos said, stuffing his miscellaneous notes that he tore out of his note back inside inside his worn and torn notebook. 

"You're so messy. Here, let me clean up the papers." Sylvia said, walking around the desk and shooing Carlos away. Carlos stood up and stretched, and all his muscles popped in content. "I'm gonna throw all my trash away." Carlos said, walking over to the other side of his office to get his trash bin. The two of them worked in silence, Sylvia putting papers in places that you'd logically put them and Carlos throwing away coffee cups and microwaveable meals. 

It was about ten or so minutes of silence, blissful silence that was definitely enjoyed on both parties. And very needed as well. "What do you want me to do with Mal's muffin?" Sylvia asked when the desk was cleared of everything but the muffin. "You can have it." Carlos said, tossing his last coffee cup into the garbage. "But it was meant for you." Sylvia said. "I've eaten enough muffins for a life time, trust me you can have it." Carlos answered, and she shrugged. 

"Alright! This place is spotless!" Sylvia shouted a little too loud for 5 a.m. "Wow, it really doesn't look like a scientist has been living here for a week." Carlos said, and Sylvia walked over to his side, getting a little too close for comfort. "Yeah, because a mad scientist has been living here for a week." Sylvia joked, and Carlos nudged her slightly. "The mad ones are always the best ones. Thanks for helping me out." Carlos looked over at her, and she couldn't help but smile at him. "Want to repay me?" She asked. "I never said all that." Carlos chuckled, and so did she. 

"Well I'm gonna head home and I'm leaving your files on the desk, okay?" She said, gesturing to the files neatly stacked on his desk. Carlos smiled at her. "Thank you." He said. "Get some rest, okay?" She said, opening the door to the office and giving him one last glance before leaving him behind. 


	2. Rest

The one thing someone looks forward to most in life is something they don't have, or something they can't get. Whether it be seeing a loved one someone never sees anymore or someone's favorite ice cream flavor they never eat anymore because of a diet. That, for Carlos...was his bed. When Carlos crashed on that bed the he could hear a heavenly choir singing, the angels themselves calling him. It was intense.

He didn't even know how many hours he slept, when he actually went to sleep, or if he even changed into sleeping clothes. When he got home everything became a blurry haze and exhaustion set in. He suddenly felt like he couldn't move another step without falling to the ground in a sleepless daze. Nevertheless, he ended up in his bed and took the tucked in sides and threw them over his body, burritoing himself in the blanket and just sleeping like that.

The next thing he knew he was being roused from sleep and the early morning became early afternoon. Good thing he was never a morning person. When he opened his eyes he couldn't see much, it was still hazy from the long sleep and it didn't help that his hair kept falling into his face. His hair was getting long though, probably down to his neckline if he really looked. He probably did need a haircut, but science was more important than that.

His phone was buzzing in his pants pocket, vibrating against his leg and becoming the culprit of his wake up call. "Shut up..." Carlos mumbled in his sleepy haze. Then he looked around, watching his surroundings becoming more and more visible in the darkness. "How the hell...did I get...in this damn...?" Carlos looked down at his burrito blanket in confusion, and in slight distress.

He wiggled his arms free from the blanket, then pushed the blanket down his body and making a successful escape. His phone buzzed again in his pants pockets, startling him. Carlos pulled it out and looked at the caller ID, it was a fellow employee. Well, technically even the janitor who gave Carlos muffins every morning could be considered a fellow employee. But no, it was someone from his project, his case. 

"Hello?" Carlos asked in a bit of a panic. "Carlos! I finally got to you!" The man on the other end. Carlos didn't recognize his voice, but then again he never made time to talk to his fellow employees since he was infamous for being locked in his office and then opening the door one day with all the answers to whatever he was working on at the time. Who was on the line again? Carlos pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment to look at the caller ID again, Alex. Huh. That guy. 

"There's been a beak in the case. Well, kind of. It's kind of a break, but we don't know what to make of it. Can you help us? I know you're off and everything but..." Alex continued a little sadly. "How long have you all known about this break through?" Carlos asked. "About...well it happened at about one this afternoon. Why?" Alex asked, and Carlos checked the clock on his phone. It was three in the afternoon. God damn it Sylvia. "Okay, I'll be right there in about, say...-" "Sir, wash up first please. Sylvia, your friend, told us to not bother you because you were sleeping and I know you probably just woke up." Alex said. 

God. Damn. It. Sylvia. "Okay, okay, I'll wash up first. But make sure to call me if anything happens asap, okay?" Carlos said. "I will, oh, and thank you for coming down so quickly." Alex said, and Carlos couldn't help but smile to himself. "It's work." Carlos said, and Alex gave off a quiet sigh. "Right, work. Alright, bye." Alex said a little too quickly and then just hanging up. The poor boy. 

Carlos slid off the bed and tossed his phone on the mattress. He made his way out the door, and sighing. The place was kind of dim with no lights on, but the windows put some light in. It was a beautiful day, and yeah he had pressing work matters to attend to but to be honest he was kind of excited for a day off as well. Everyone needs a break sometimes. He wanted to go outside and maybe go swim in the public pool outside of his apartment complex. No matter though, work calls. 

He made his way over to the bathroom mirror and stared at himself for a minute. His hair was messy and his eyes looked lazy. it felt odd to him for actually getting a night's sleep, and to finally feel refreshed after a week of energy drinks and blueberry muffins. It's odd to see how far he's come with himself, his work. Whether it be for better or for worse, he doesn't know. His income is getting better and better with each year, and he's getting more and more recognizable in the science career. 

However, his mentality is just going down and down. He needed to rejuvenate, he needed less of a work load. But he needs a job and a stable income to provide for himself and his apartment. However, he sees his younger self in someone he knows, someone he always forgets the name of. Alex. Alex is like a younger him, the poor thing. He's so eager to take on assignments, and he even is like how he was before. He was a genius, and so is Alex. He's a smart young man who's bright and kind and eager to work. He's even on the case with them, he's the youngest on the team. 

Carlos sighed and pulled out his toothbrush, putting the paste on the brush and brushing his teeth. He brushed and brushed, and then spit it out, running the tap water to drink and then spit out the water. Carlos grabbed the ponytail that laid not-so neatly on his bathroom sink and pulled his hair back, putting it into a loose ponytail. He didn't have much time, and he just wanted to brush his teeth and make sure he was sort of presentable to work. 

He looked down at his clothes and had a big sigh. He knew his clothes wouldn't work there. His belt was off, his coat is off, his shirt buttons were unbuttoned in some places, and his pants were falling. He needed to change and he needed to take a shower...and eat. He sighed in frustration and exited the bathroom, making his way to his bedroom closet. He opened the door and quickly moved through his crowds of clothes to go to the end of the row. Full of labcoats and work clothes. 

He pulled a pair a pants out, a hanging button down shirt off, and a labcoat. Afterwards he tossed it on the bed, stripping down as quickly as he could while grabbing socks and undergarments. In record time he stripped down from everything, to nothing, and back to everything. Clean clothes felt refreshing and a little warm. It was a nice feeling, and distracted him for a good moment about his stomach screaming in anguish. What Carlos would give to just never have to deal with trivial problems such as hunger and exhaustion. 

However though, he does have to deal with it. He has to deal with work, with life, with this case. He wasn't going to drop everything like a banana peel, he had work to do. And, as he grabbed his belongs that were sprawled out on the floor, he walked into that busy life he has to deal with. However, he's glad that he was given the opportunity to enjoy what he deals with. 


	3. First Breakthrough

"Sylvia." Carlos spoke into the phone. His car was speeding down the road a little too fast to the office. He was angry, angry and nervous. He was nervous because this breakthrough could've resulted in more death, but angry because Sylvia never told him anything at all. "Carlos." Sylvia said on the other line. "Wait, I hear...Carlos are you in your car? What song is playing? Why are you awake?" She asked in a panic. 

"I don't know Sylvia. When did you know that there was a break in the case?" Carlos asked, and Sylvia stayed silent for a minute. "Carlos I-" "Sylvia you promised." Carlos interrupted her. "I...know. I know. Carlos you know I was just worried about you. You haven't had proper sleep in I don't know how long." Sylvia pleaded over the line, but quietly. "Sylvia-" "Carlos I'm sorry, but just...don't be mad. Okay? Please? I'm really sorry." Sylvia pleaded. 

"We'll talk about this later." Carlos said over the line, slightly cold in his tone. Sylvia stayed quiet for another moment, before taking a deep breath. "Okay. Bye Carlos." Sylvia said, sounded defeated as she hung up the line and stuffing the phone in his pocket. Carlos sighed, turning up his radio. "And now some local news. A large argument broke out on Twitter between..." The radio hummed in the silence of the car. Carlos had always been the type of person who kept up with the news. When he was working on experiments he'd play the news as background noise. He had the radio news on a lot of the time, but not always. He didn't want to be out of the loop of the local news.

He pulled into the driveway, getting the back row of cars. He was used to having the front near the doors since he was here before everyone else. Now he's the last one to come in today. Carlos had class to teach tomorrow, he almost forgot. He made his lesson plan out when trying to solve anything with the case. It was his way of forcing himself to take a break, even though it wasn't a break at all. Yet it was soothing, knowing he had control over something. Know he could solve his problem, and then teach it to others. And get paid for it too.

Carlos stepped out of the car, closing the door. He made his way around to the backseat doors and opened those doors, going to reach for his bag of materials. Carlos cursed to himself, realizing he left it in his office overnight then closed his door a little too roughly. He then made his way out of the parking lot and through the front doors. "Took yourself a break?" the janitor asked with a smile on his face. Carlos smiled back politely said, "Yeah." He kept moving though, through the front office that was slabbed with grays of different shades that Carlos didn't care for. 

He made his way to the elevator, clicking the up button. The orange little up arrow glowed up, and he disregarded it. Carlos pulled the phone out of his pocket, a missed text. 'I'm still so sorry Carlos. I really didn't think anything would happen, I'm sorry.' - Sylvia. Carlos unintentionally and involuntarily scoffed at the message before shoving it back into his pocket. The elevator doors opened and Carlos stepped inside. He turned to the floor buttons and hit the third button, the lab department.

The building was separated into three buildings. The first floor was to teach scientists in training, any type of scientist. However many of the scientists here were chemists, but a few would do any sort of science available to them as long as it was in the name of 'science'. The second floor was a bit miscellaneous, there was the facility lounge for teachers but there was also board rooms for thinking for the actual scientists. The third floor was where students did labs and scientists made discoveries. The place was a little strange in it's design and it's contents. 

The elevator opened it's doors, and as soon as his vision was cleared to the hallway and scientists along with doctors alike were running like wildfire in the hallways. "Carlos!" Carlos popped his head up to see Alex looking at him with panicked eyes. His coat was a bit rumpled and his hair was all in his face, it looked like he had just finished having a panic attack of sort. "Carlos, you're here! Okay, come with me. The doctors and scientists are going crazy in here, and a lot are freaking out and left the room and I just- come with me." Alex said in a quick speed, taking Carlos by the wrist and dragging him out the elevator. 

"What happened Alex? What's going on?!" Carlos asked, trying to walk at Alex's speedy pace but ultimately tripping all over his own feet. "We found someone new with the same...illness or something," Alex paused for a moment in his speech and stopping once they got to one of the lab rooms with a dry erase board stuck to the door that said 'EXPERIMENT SEIZURE'. "But he's saying different things. It's not the same." Alex said, and with that Carlos opened the door as Alex trailed behind him. 

However, what was in that room is something that Carlos hated seeing every time they met someone new with this. Tied to a chair, their bodies and limbs moving in ways that shouldn't be possible with those speeds, and many are sobbing. "My wife...my kids...they took...I ran...it took...that voice...it hurts...God...God please..." The man sputtered, saliva drooling down his lower lip as he spoke. Nilanjana, a fellow scientist, walked over to Carlos who was inching closer to the man. 

"He's been deemed missing for about a week. It looks like the seizure and emotional paralysis has been less effective with less time. With that, we're not sure if this seizure will kill him or not." Nilanjana said to Carlos, and Carlos unintentionally took in a swift breath. "Can he answer questions?" Carlos asked her, and Nilanjana shrugged. "Kind of. We have asked questions, but it seems as if he's answering in keywords that only he understands the meaning behind." Alex butt into the conversation. Neither of the two minded. 

"Sir, what is you name?" Carlos asked, walking toward the man with uncontrolled movements. "K-Kyle...Kyle Hedrickson..." The man stumbled over his words. "Where did you disappear to?" Carlos asked. "Sir, shouldn't we try to stop his seizure-" "If we stop his seizure he could potentially die. We don't know what's going to happen, we haven't had anyone with a special case." Carlos barked at Alex, who tensed up slightly. "Where did you go?" Carlos shouted at the man. "N-N-N-Night...vale." Kyle stammered. "Nightvale? Where is that?" Carlos asked.

"Away..." Kyle muttered. "Who is the voice?" Nilanjana asked, stepping toward him. "T-That voice..always...t-the radio...host...h-host..." Kyle whispers as he started to cry. His body was starting to stop moving, and his eyes were closing. "H-Hey Kyle! Stay with us now! Kyle! What about your wife and kids?! Come on!" Carlos shouted, grabbing the man's shoulders and squeezing them. The man was unresponsive and his body was growing still. "Come on! I won't let another one die! You gotta stay awake! You're gonna save people! Come ON!" Carlos screamed at the man, at Kyle, but the man went completely still and his eyes fluttered shut. 

"The less they stay the less resilient and more normal they are. That seizure killed him, but I wonder what would happen if someone disappeared for a year. Would they never seizure? Or would something worse happen?" Nilanjana said, trying her best to not feel for the man who had just died. "...How are the autopsy reports Nilanjana?" Alex asked in a scared squeak. "Their bodies are too healthy. They're way more resilient, like their bodies have handled much worse than a deadly seizure. The longer they stay the better their body becomes and the less likely they will die from this seizure. What truly causes it is still unknown." Carlos muttered, more to himself than anything, scientific facts are better than feeling this pain. 

Carlos turned to the two, and they all knew that they weren't emotionless but they had to be in the name of science. "They gave you the autopsy report?" Nilanjana asked. "Yes, and when we see...Kyle's...autopsy report we can see if his body is weaker." Carlos said in a monotone voice. "So then...we have our first breakthrough." Alex mumbled. 


End file.
